


Shrouded

by UglyJackal



Series: Final Fantasy Shenanigans [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Blind Character, M/M, slight gore - not too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 13:25:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16018838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/UglyJackal
Summary: 'It's not your fault.'





	Shrouded

Jack decided that he didn’t like the Praetorium. He was glad that his friends, who were much more skillful than he was, were with him to save his sorry ass. He made sure to keep close to Izabella, because the shots that strayed his way had almost drawn an angry full stop on the sentence of his life. Even if he had gone into Coerthas proclaiming he was a heretic, he would rather not lose his heartbeat to an Imperial, of all people. 

He was also thankful that Cid was tailing along behind them on the magitek armour - “Maggie” as she was affectionately named. His boyfriend would regularly check in to make sure he was okay, offering a seat up in Maggie’s cockpit when he saw Jack lagging behind them, though Jack only laughed and rebutted the proposal, saying he hadn’t lost the use of his legs yet. 

He regretted turning Cid down later on. 

‘Sure, down the garbage chute, seems reasonable,’ Jack grumbled to himself. 

‘Shut up and get down here,’ Izabella snapped over the linkshell. 

‘I’m coming, wait your bloody hurry.’

‘Alternatively, you could wait for me to blow the door open,’ Cid’s gruff baritone rumbled through the ear piece. 

‘Now that’s more like it,’ the miqo'te chuckled, ‘at least my boyfriend knows how to treat me right.’

He hung back, just to the left of the door, watching it with his weapon out in case any Imperials made their way through. 

The metallic whine of the magitek screeched through the air, just as the cannons fired the first shot. 

Smoke filled Jack’s lungs and he coughed, heat engulfing him, tempting more sweat from his pores. He looked back at the door through streaming, blurred vision, not having time to wipe away the distortion. 

If only his last memory of clear sight wasn’t Izabella and Zelda in their skanky outfits. 

The door imploded with a crunch of breaking bone. Parts of its skeleton clanked across the ground. Apart from one piece. Which thudded into a golden eye with the squelch of blinding ruin. 

Cid, Zelda and Izabella all turned in terror at the scream that pierced the smoking air. Cid leapt down from Maggie, Izabella drew her orb, already charging her healing power, and Zelda drew her red mage staff, ready to beat any of the Imperials away from her friend. 

But what they saw instead made their hearts stutter like a nervous dog.

Jack was laying on the ground, curled in on himself, hands covering his face, ears flat against his head, trembling and whimpering violently. 

Cid could barely breathe. His fault. His fault. Should have told Jack to move. What had he been thinking? He took shaking steps forward, forgetting about Livia and Gaius and the Ultima Weapon and  _ everything _ . He forgot his very name. He could not remember anything but the terror and the  _ scream _ . By the Twelve, that scream would haunt his every waking moment, sewed into his memory like a fine accent on a suit. 

Zelda rushed towards Jack, mumbled “no”s on her lips as she crouched down to him. ‘Jack?’ she said, ‘come on, buddy, speak to us? What’s happened?’ She placed her hands on his shoulder gently, pulling him onto his back. She gasped as she saw the blood leaking from underneath his hand, spreading like the spill of ink over a will and testament. ‘Izabella!’ she cried. 

‘Already here,’ the astrologian said as she knelt on the opposite side to Zelda. She placed her hand over Jack’s, who flinched in response. ‘Shh, it’s okay,’ she said, voice hushed and gentle, as though she was speaking to a frightened animal - in a sense, she was. ‘We’re gonna help you, don’t you worry now. Just gotta see the wound that we’re dealing with, so how about you move your hands, yeah?’ It was the gentlest she had ever spoken to Jack, and it didn’t do anything to make the situation any less terrifying than it was. If even Izabella was being kind to the blue-haired man, then something was definitely wrong. 

Jack very carefully moved his hand away from his right eye, whimpering. ‘It hurts,’ he whined. Zelda grabbed his hand, not caring about the blood that pooled in his palm, and now stained her gloves. She would have taken his pain, if she could have, and sharing the blood on their hands felt like a way that she might compensate for not being able to do that in the first place. 

Underneath Jack’s hand, there was his eye the colour of the sun, and now that sun was bleeding stars of roses. And there was a shard of asteroid that had settled in the black hole of his pupil.

Izabella immediately cast her healing spell. The wound dried of its blood and stitched itself back together. But something was wrong. There was no recognition, no spark, no  _ life _ in the, now healed, sun. 

‘Jack?’ Zelda asked, noticing Izabella’s worried face. 

‘I… I can’t see,’ the miqo'te whispered, voice trembling. 

‘You can’t see? Nothing at all?’ the red mage said, voice lilting in terror. 

‘Nothing… in my right eye,’ Jack said, sparking a tiny sliver of hope in everyone’s heart. Until - ‘but everything is… weird in my left. It’s like… like I’m looking through a foggy window.’

‘He’s blind?’ Cid said, the first words he had spoken since the scream from Jack’s mouth had curled into the air. 

‘Half-blind,’ Izabella said, turning her gaze on her half-brother. It was a sad gaze, one loaded with sympathy. 

Zelda helped Jack to sit up and immediately hugged him into her chest, throat clenching with unspoken sobs. Izabella turned back to her friends and her face crumpled. Tears fell down her face, not caring that with every droplet, her reputation of Emotionless Bitch splintered. She leaned into Jack’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around his waist, hiding her tear-streaked face into his robes. 

Jack just trembled and blinked, head resting on Zelda’s collarbone. His vision would be manageable, he told himself, he’d still be able to be the Warrior of Light, he’d still be able to help, he’d still have a use. He wouldn’t be thrown away like nothing. 

But what use was a half-blind Mage?

As the tears bubbled from his eyes, he looked up at Cid behind a window of frosted glass.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t feel angry. He didn’t blame. He didn’t feel sad. He didn’t feel anything. 

So he just smiled. 

And Cid collapsed to his knees, tears bursting from his eyes as though a dam had burst. ‘I’m sorry!’ he wailed. ‘I’m so sorry!’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Jack said, reaching out his hand. 

Cid grabbed onto the trembling hand like a lifeline, like a path to redemption. He kissed Jack’s knuckles and sniffed as those same fingers wiped away his tears and cradled his jaw. 

‘It’s not your fault.’


End file.
